There will be no general meeting of the CHGPA this December. Instead, we'll be celebrating the holidays at our annual CHGPA Christmas Party! This year's hosts are John and Marney, and it will be held at Marney's place in Bethesda, MD.

Directions to Marney's can be found in the Member's Only area of our website. If you need the password, give our Pres Daniel a call at 301-275-6584 .

I've heard rumors that a new DVD, produced by Gary and 'Spark, will be debuted at the party. So stop by for some holiday fun, see some great flying footage, and catch up with your friends!

Please reserve a place on your calendar for the Oct 25th CHGPA meeting!

This month, Kelvin and Susan are kindly opening their home for our club meeting. Directions can be found in the Member's Only area of our website. If you need the password, give our Pres Daniel a call at 301-275-6584 .

Daniel has put together a busy agenda this month:

• Presentation by a member of the Shenandoah Mountain Rescue Group on incident site procedures.
• Discussion of project to re-open dormant training hills
• Pulpit awards ceremony
• Planning the Christmas party
• Discussion of proposal to install a paragliding launch at High Rock
• Viewing the High Rock 30th DVD

The CHGPA and MHGA will be holding their annual Fly-In and Just-For-Fun XC Competition the third weekend of September. Details and the latest info can be found at the Festival website

We're going to have a ton of great raffle prizes, a cook-out and party on Saturday night, trophies and medals for the winners of the XC comp, and fireworks too!

Our Festival benefits the Rescue Squad of McConnellsburg PA, so your participation will also help out a very worthy cause. Please consider buying a few extra raffle tickets so that we can make a larger donation.

Reserve the 17h and 18th of September for our Fly-In, we guarantee you'll have a great time if you do!

2005 marks the 30th year of hang gliding at High Rock, the East Coast's longest continually-operating cliff-launch site. And we plan to hold a Fly-In worthy of this milestone anniversary!

Details about the Fly-In can be found at the High Rock Fly-In website. If we are rained-out, the Fly-In will be postponed to the following weekend, August 26-28. We will update this event calendar with additional info in a few weeks.

Come on out and be a part of history this August!

Please reserve a place on your calendar for the July 27th CHGPA meeting!

This month, our continuing quest for a new meeting venue after the loss of Lasick's takes us to Carpool, a happenin' place for billiards, barbecue, and beer in Arlington VA. Kudos to our always-thinking club pres Daniel for coming up with this idea!

We'll be discussing the High Rock 30th Anniversary party and this fall's Pulpit Fly-In. If time permits, Mark C will discuss an XC from Woodstock which provided some valuable lessons learned.

Carpool is metro accessible : Orange line to the Ballston station; left at the top of the escalater; head toward the International House of Pancakes; Carpool is one block past IHOP.

Detailed driving directions are also available at the Carpool website.

We think this will be a fun meeting, so come on out!

Highland Aerosports in Ridgely Maryland will be holding its annual fly-in on June 25 and 26 with the friendly competitions, awards, and dinner on Saturday the 25th. Planned demos are from Wills Wing, Aeros, and Moyes. If you are planning on attending, please shoot the Highland crew an email so that they can plan for shirts and dinner.

Highland Aerosports in Ridgely Maryland is hosting the 2005 East Coast Championships (ECC), a USHGA-sanctioned competition for Flex-wing and Rigid-wing Hang Glider pilots!

See Highland's ECC Website for the latest info, including entry fees, entrance requirements, and accomodations.

This is Highland's first 'official' comp, and it's quite an exciting development for the Mid-Atlantic area. If you would like to volunteer to help make the inaugural ECC a success, please contact Highland at ecc@aerosports.net

Our meeting location this month is the 94th Aero Squadron restaurant in College Park, MD. The 94th is perhaps 5-10 minutes from Lasick's, and (literally) overlooks the runway of the College Park Airport.

Address:

5240 Paint Branch Pkwy
College Park, MD 20740-3812
Phone: (301)699-9400

General Directions:

Get onto Kenilworth Avenue. From the BW Parkway, take the Greenbelt Road (NASA) exit, then make a left onto Kenilworth (Route 201). Or you could head into College Park via Route 1, then turn left (east) onto Greenbelt Road, which will take you to Kenilworth. Follow Kenilworth Ave south to Paint Branch Parkway, make a right, and go about a half mile. The 94th Aero Squadron will be on the right. Paint Branch Parkway used to be Calvert Road : it no longer intersects Route 1 due to the construction of the Green Line metro stop in College Park.

Map, Website, and Detailed Directions:

94th Aero Squadron Map
94th Aero Squadron Website

Topics for this month include: safety tips for the spring flying season; officer reports; and flying stories. Please help support our club, the sport, and free-flight in Region IX by attending our (near) quarterly meeting!

As you may know, a fire destroyed Lasick's restaurant in College Park in the fall of 2004, so we have had to find alternative venues for our meetings. We hope that you will enjoy the 94th!

**Cancelled due to rain (Sat) and high winds (Sun)**

The CHGPA will once again be exhibiting at the annual Smithsonian Kite Festival held on the Mall in Washington DC. This is our club's most effective event for spreading the word about hang gliding and paragliding to the public!

Set-up starts at 8:30am, and the festival runs until 4:00pm. The more enthusiastic people we have on-hand to help explain our sports and the many opportunities for learning to fly, the better! Please contact Matthew G. if you can help out in some way.

So please stop by the CHGPA booth, even if only for an hour or so. You will be amazed at the number of genuinely-interested people who flock around the gliders and want to learn all about them. After all, we fly big kites, how could anyone resist?

The KiteFest will be held on the Mall, on the east side of the Washington Monument, between 10th and 14th streets. More details are available at the KiteFest website. You can call the KiteFest hotline at 202-357-3030 to find out about possible postponement in the event that the weather doesn't cooperate. The rain date is Sunday April 3.

By the way, the KiteFest is also part of the larger National Cherry Blossom Festival, and this year's fireworks display will be on the same day as the KiteFest. So there's another good reason to make this event a part of your weekend!

The main purpose of our January meeting is to elect officers for the Board-Of-Directors offices which are opening up for 2005 (including President). We will also be leaning on members to renew for 2005, so please bring your checkbooks!

As you may know, a fire destroyed Lasick's restaurant in College Park last fall, so we have to find an alternative venue for our meetings. Kelvin and Susan have graciously offered use of their home for the January meeting. You can find directions in the Members-Only area of our website. If you've forgotten the password, send an email to our Director-At-Large requesting the directions.